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SERMON PREACHED 
IN THE 

CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH 

Greene and Clermont Avenues 
BROOKLYN-NEW YORK 

SUNDAY, MAY 13, 1917 

BY THE RECTOR 

REV. ST. CLAIR HESTER, D.D. 




(PRINTED BY REQUEST) 



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The Lafayette Memorial 

Prospect Park, Brooklyn' New York 
Unveiled by JOSEPH JOFFRE 

Marshal of France 

MAY 10th, 1917 






THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE 
This statue was erected and presented by 

HENPvY HAKTEAU 

a distinguished citizen of Brooklyn, to be an enduring tribute to the 
memory of one who as friend and companion of the immortal 
Washington, fought to establish in our country those vital principles 
of Liberty and human brotherhood, which he afterward labored to 
establish in his own. 

Inscription upon front of the base. 





Sllfp l&tv. e>t. ailair ^taUr, l.B. 



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Text Joshua 18 :40. Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua. 

But Joshua first gave valuable prolonged and highly important 
service to Israel. Virtue is sure of a reward. It may not come 
quickly but it comes. It may not be in material form but in 
what counts for more, moral and spiritual obhgation. It may 
not reach complete expression in the life-time of the one who 
earns and deserves it, but because an obligation, surviving and 
continuing in the hearts of those he leaves behind, it grows with 
the passing years and becomes endowed with immortality. 

Joshua and Lafayette— a hero of the old dispensation and 
a hero of the new. It seems a far cry from one to the other. 
But study the careers, the characters, the achievements of these 
two men and the dissimilarities will become less glaring and the 
resemblances more striking than at the first mention of their 
names. Both were decidedly men of war, both were distinguished 
leaders in their day, both held positions of the highest responsi- 
bility and trust, both were brave to the point of rashness, both 
performed services which will Hve undimmed on the pages of 
history, both have been acclaimed and commended by all succeed- 
ing generations. Both came forth from an old to a new country 
to aid in building up a new nation and both lived to see their 
efforts crowned with the most extraordinary success. Joshua's 
military achievements were the greater but Lafayette's were the 
more disinterested. 

Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua, America through the 
generosity of a citizen and with the co-operation of the officials 
and people of its greatest city on May 10th, gave an inheritance 
to Lafayette. In Joshua's case it was a city to dwell in and to 
have and hold as his own and while he was yet alive. In La- 
fayette's case it was and is a perpetual gratitude and affection of 
a people, testified to and demonstrated nearly a hundred years 
after his death. The proudly fluttering banners, the bursts of 
martial music, the enthusiasm of a vast concourse of people, the 
merry shouts of little children, the likeness moulded in enduring 
bronze, all these taken together may be conceived of as an address 



LAFAYETTE. THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 

to the soul of Lafayette, "we do not forget, we do not forget, 
our praise, our honor, our appreciation is your inheritance and 
it is human, because inshrined in the heart of humanity it can 
never cease to be." 

There is a pecuhar fitness in the people of this Church of 
the Messiah listening to words about the great man in whose 
honor a memorial has been unveiled so recently in our Borough 
by a Marshal of France. For one reason which may be men- 
tioned nowhere else, because Henry Harteau, who provided for 
the memorial in his will was an enrolled parishioner of this 
church for more than fifteen years, 1880-1895. My predecessor, 
the late Rev. Dr. Charles R. Baker, was an intimate friend of 
his and ofificiated on the occasion when his mortal remains were 
laid to rest. His wife, Mrs. Margaret N. Harteau, it was my 
privilege to know well and visit frequently and when the end 
came to enter her name upon a memorial to our departed mem- 
bers. Mr. Harteau was of French descent, a distinguished citizen 
of Brooklyn, active and useful in the service of the public and 
died happy in the thought that he had done something to per- 
petuate America's appreciation of the services of the great apostle 
of liberty who came to her rescue in the time of her weakness 
and need. We rejoice that Henry Harteau was moved by a fine 
sense of honor to whom honor is due to provide funds for the 
erection of this memorial. Like him we believe that the valuable 
services rendered to our country by this truly great and self- 
sacrificing man at the most critical time in its history piled up 
a debt of obligation which continues undiminished and undis- 
charged through all succeeding generations. 

Let me review as briefly as possible the life and labors of 
the man whose memory our sometime parishioner, our fellow 
citizens and our distinguished visitors have delighted to honor. 

The Marquis de Lafayette was born in the Castle of Chav- 
aniac, the seat of his mother's family in Auvergne, September 6, 
1757. His father, a Colonel of Grenadiers, fell at the battle 
of Minden, and his mother and her father, the Marquis de la 
Riviere, both died Mobile he was at the College du Plessis in 
Paris, leaving him the absolute master of a fortune of $30,000 a 



maim 



LAFAYETTE, THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 

year. August 31, 1774, he married Marie Adrienne de Noailles, 
daughter of the Due d'Ayen, and grand-daughter of the Due de 
Noailles. By this alliance he was introduced into the exclusive 
set that revolved about the person of Louis XVI and the young 
queen Marie Antoinette. He would accept no post in the royal 
household, his serious and earnest nature recoiling from the 
arts and accomplishments of the gallant and the courtier. When 
he heard of the revolt of the colonies on the far side of the 
Atlantic "his heart was enlisted" and after consultation with 
the American Commissioner, Mr. Dean, determined to proceed 
thither and enlist in their cause. Unable to procure passage on 
any ship, he fitted out one at his own expense. The dissuasions 
of friends, the efforts of his family and even the express order 
of the King did not avail to stop him. He succeeded in escaping 
from the guards sent to arrest and detain him and in reaching 
his ship at Bordeaux. Though pursued on the high seas by 
British men-of-war, he managed to elude them and landed on 
the shore of the Pedee River in South CaroHna, June 14, 1777. 
With his companion, Baron DeKalb, he made the long journey 
to Philadelphia and arrived there during the sitting of the Con- 
tinental Congress. He offered his services with the request that 
he be made a general. His offer met with rude repulse and he 
was told that he could not be put over older men who had earned 
promotion by good service in the field. But when he offered 
to serve without pay and as a volunteer without rank he received 
the coveted appointment. It was a dark hour of the Revolution. 
New York and Newport were in the hands of the enemy. Ticon- 
deroga had fallen, Lord Howe was about to attack Philadelphia, 
the American army was small and poorly equipped, but all this 
made no difference with him. "His heart was enlisted." He 
became a firm friend and volunteer Aid de Camp on the staff 
of General Washington and followed him loyally to the end of 
the contest. At the battle of Brandy wine, while attempting to 
rally the broken American line, he received a bullet in his leg. 
On other occasions he further distinguished himself and finally, 
upon the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief, he was 
placed in command of a division of Virginia militia. He re- 



LAFAYETTE. THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 

mained with the army during the terrible winter at Valley Forge. 
This experience doubtless influenced him to seek help for the 
desperate cause of the colonies. Returning to France in 1779 
he was instrumental in securing an auxiliary force of several 
thousand men for service in North America. The result with 
this reinforcement is known to all the world. The French fleet 
under Count de Grasse and the French land forces under La- 
fayette and Viomenil co-operated with such good efifect with our 
forces that Lord Cornwallis was forced to surrender at York- 
town and the Revolution attained its object of making the United 
States free and independent. 

Upon his return to France Lafayette was received with great 
popular enthusiasm, even the King who had forbidden him to 
go to America forgetting his displeasure and making him a 
marshal of France. He was particularly useful at this juncture 
in helping our representatives negotiate a treaty of peace and in 
securing for our country a substantial and badly needed loan. 
In 1784 he revisited America. After spending a fortnight with 
General Washington at Mount Vernon he journeyed through 
the principal cities of the country, his reception everywhere 
resembling a triumphal progress. 

His enthusiasm for liberty and the halo of the reputation he 
had won in America enabled him to play a leading part in the 
early stages of the French Revolution. He was a member of 
the States General or National Assembly when he offered his 
famous revolutionary manifesto known as the rights of men and 
citizens. He was made Vice-President and later on Commander- 
in-Chief of the National Guard, and after the removal of the 
seat of government from Paris was the most popular as well 
as the most powerful man in the Kingdom. When the mob 
marched out to Versailles, thirsting for the blood of royalty, and 
Marie Antoinette appeared upon the balcony, a pathetic figure 
in her helplessness, though Lafayette knew the deadly pur- 
pose of those present and saw guns leveled upon her and that 
in befriending her he was risking his own life, he stood by her 
and courteously raised her hand to his lips and thus for the time 
being saved her from violence. His opposition to the fanatical 



LAFAYETTE, THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 

Jacobins and his stand for reason, moderation and humane meas- 
ures made him unpopular with the extremists who became 
supreme. Eventually he was compelled to flee the country and 
falling into the hands of the Austrians remained their prisoner 
for five weary years until Napoleon secured his release in 1797. 
After the fall of the great Corsican, Lafayette served his country 
in various capacities, as member of the Chamber of Deputies, 
and as Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard. In 1824, 
forty years after his former visit, at the invitation of President 
Monroe, he again visited the United States. No guest of the 
nation was ever received with greater reverence or affection. He 
was looked upon as the hero of twO' continents. 

The then venerable Lafayette laid the cornerstone of the 
Bunker Hill monument during this visit, on which occasion 
Daniel Webster referred to him in an eloquent apostrophe as "the 
man who had conducted the spark of liberty from the new world 
to the old." It was a solemn and sacred moment during this visit 
when he stood alone and with bowed head by the grave of Wash- 
ington. Over the dust of the great dead the patriot of France 
paid the homage of his tears. Though an aristocrat by birth and 
blood, though descended from a noble and ancient line, though 
the associate and intimate of kings and queens and the most 
exalted of the earth, he was democratic in his tastes and habits, 
the friend and champion of the common people, never assumed 
airs of superiority, the same modest, fearless, exemplary char- 
acter in all situations, unaffected by rank, fame or adulation. 
Two incidents illustrate this side of his nature. He eagerly 
seconded the proposal to abolish all titles of nobility when the 
republican era was being inaugurated in France, and never after 
that permitted himself to be addressed as marquis. Again when 
Napoleon wanted to make him a Peer of France he declined 
the dignity and accepted, instead, a mandate to serve in the 
Chamber of Deputies. 

Love for our country and what it stands for was never better 
expressed than in a letter to his wife written on board his ship, 
the "Victory," when on his way to enhst in our struggle for 
freedom : "From love to me become a good American ; the wel- 



LAFAYETTE. THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 

fare of America is closely bound up with the welfare of all 
mankind, it is about to become the safe asylum of virtue, toler- 
ance, equality and peaceful liberty." He backed up these fine 
words with deeds equally fine and entirely convincing. By the 
time he left America at the close of the Revolution he had ex- 
pended in the service of Congress 700,000 francs, a fortune in- 
those days, perhaps more than any other individual had given, 
a free gift to the cause of liberty. Though born to wealth, he 
was not spoiled by it, using it freely to advance the general good 
of mankind rather than to promote his own interests or to 
minister to his personal enjoyments. 

One of the pleasing things about him to all Americans was 
the affectionate friendship which existed between himself and 
General Washington. He looked up to Washington as to a 
father as well as a chief and Washington regarded him with a 
tenderness truly paternal. Lafayette named his eldest son 
George Washington and never omitted any opportunity to tes- 
tify his love and veneration for the illustrious American. 
Franklin was equally fond of him and once wrote General Wash- 
ington asking him, for the sake of his young and anxious wife, 
not to expose his life except in an important and decisive 
engagement. 

Reverses, discouragements, defeats did not cool his ardor or 
alter his determination once his soul was committed. When he 
was laying plans to come to America, alarming and distressing 
news reached Paris — the retreat from Long Island, the loss of 
New York, the battle of White Plains, a triumphal army of 
33,000 English and Hessians driving a disheartened band of 
3,000 militia across New Jersey — even some of the Americans 
tried to persuade him that it was useless to go, that all was lost. 
But he said to Mr. Dean, "We must feel confidence for the 
future, it is especially in the hour of danger that I wish to share 
your fortunes." 

"May this immense temple of freedom ever stand a lesson 
to oppression, an example to the oppressed, as a sanctuary for 
the rights of mankind." These were the glowing words in which 
Lafayette, the great apostle of liberty and fighter for freedom. 



LAFAYETTE, THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 



bade farewell to the first Congress of the United States which 
his sword had helped to bring into being. What more impres- 
sive closing could there be to this hasty review than these prayer- 
ful words ? Freedom and the rights of mankind by his bravery, 
his untiring zeal, his blood and treasure freely expended, he helped 
very materially to make this country the temple of the one and 
the sanctuary of the other. It is a priceless inheritance which de- 
scends to the Americans of this generation, and they as worthy 
sons of worthy sires are duty bound to protect and defend it and 
to bequeath it as a blessing unimpaired to their posterity. More 
than this let it be America's mission to enlarge the scope of its 
beneficence, to make it to shine as a light to them that sit in dark- 
ness and in the shadow of death, a light of guidance, of help, of 
inspiration to the oppressed and despairing people of every land. 
Lafayette helped to give us this splendid inheritance. As proof 
and demonstration of our appreciation of it let us so perform and 
conclude our part in this great world war that all mankind may 
see our good works and get the benefits of our sacrifice and serv- 
ice and be inspired to feel kindher one towards another and to 
give greater glory to the God and Father of us all. What this 
noble Frenchman did for our nation may our nation, under God, 
be permitted to do in some large measure for all nations, for all 
mankind. 

His life may serve as an inspiration, an inspiration par- 
ticularly needed at. this eventful time, to make sacrifices and, if 
need be, to sufifer in furtherance of the great cause for which 
he and since his time his nation has stood, the cause of Hberty, 
equality and fraternity. Other generations of Americans have 
poured out their blood and treasure freely and without hesita- 
tion to upbuild these principles of pure democracy and high 
civilization, and now the opportunity has come for our gene- 
ration to take our place and do our part following in the foot- 
steps of our worthy forbears. To make the whole world safe 
for democracy, to give the common people freedom to elect and 
execute systems of government in accord with their preference 
and rights, to put an end to the interminable and intolerable fears 
and plottings, suspicions and preparations that lead to wars, to 



LAFAYETTE, THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 

establish a victorious league of honor among nations, to restore 
and then maintain the peace of the world — are there not here 
things worth sacrificing and suffering and fighting for? Can we 
for a single moment be in any doubt as to what the brave La- 
fayette would do were he alive to face with us the present world 
crisis? What he did for our nation, our nation, true to its soul, 
he helped to create, has opportunity under God to help do for 
all nations. The cause of the people is the cause of God. Jesus 
Christ gave His life in an effort to save mankind from sorrow, 
sin and death. Is not a nation following His example, helping 
to complete His work when it devotes itself, without thought 
of or desire for material gain, to the suppression and eradica- 
tion of systems, forces, ambitions and purposes, that stand in 
the way of humanity's progress in justice, happiness and peace? 
I believe so and if I did not I would oppose this last terrible 
extreme of force with all the energy of which I am capable. 
But I see in our nation's decision to enter the conflict something 
of that noble disinterestedness, that consideration for the weak 
and needy which have influenced men of like soul with La- 
fayette who through the ages have formed connecting links in 
a spiritual chain that reaches back to the soul of Him who, in 
behalf of man's redemption, yielded up the ghost on the cross 
of Calvary. 

The happiness and well being of mankind are bound up with 
the future of democracy and we believe with Lafayette that it 
is the destiny of America to be the stronghold and inspiration 
of this universal democracy. France, the homeland of Lafayette, 
our sister republic, is bleeding to death. Mr. Balfour says that 
on the fate of France depends the fate of the world. The call 
to the rescue has been sounded by our President. Every instinct 
of gratitude and generosity impels us to respond quickly, gladly, 
with men, munitions, money, with all our power. For its own 
sake, for Lafayette's sake, let us register our unbreakable deter- 
mination that La Belle France shall not be destroyed. In this 
world crisis God puts an issue before us so plainly, so unes- 
capably that the alternative is either fight in the cause of suffering 



LAFAYETTE, THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 



humanity or become yourselves sufferers and perish with the 
other sufferers. 

Where the spirit of the Lord is there is hberty. The spirit 
of the Lord God was in the soul of the great Lafayette, the spirit 
of the Lord God energizes and operates in the soul of America 
today. May the spirit of the Lord God possess and fill and 
ennoble the soul of all men everywhere until the time shall come 
when the nations of this world become the Kingdoms of our 
Lord and His Christ and the horror of war and hating shall be 
no more, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away and all tears 
shall be wiped away from the faces of God's long-suffering 
children, and we shall have a new world wherein dwelleth right- 
eousness, and all men shall have opportunity to enjoy life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness and to share in the blessings of 
brotherhood, love and peace. 

(La reconnaissance m'oblige.) 




BROOKLYN EAGLE PRESS 



030 268 361 " 



